How to treat cabbage against pests with ammonia

Treating cabbage with ammonia is suitable for both ardent opponents of chemicals and loyal amateur vegetable growers who use any effective means for fertilizing and pest control in their gardens.

Composition and properties of ammonia

Traditional uses of ammonia in everyday life: removing stains, cleaning suede shoes, washing mirrors and glass. At home, it can be used to bring people to their senses when they faint.You can buy ammonia freely at any pharmacy. An aqueous solution of ammonia is sold without prescription.

The alcohol is packaged in small bottles (40 ml). In appearance, it is an absolutely transparent liquid; the pungent smell of ammonia is difficult to confuse with anything. For gardeners it is of double interest. Firstly, the smell can repel insects, and secondly, ammonia contains nitrogen in a form accessible to all types of plants.

Nitrogen value for cabbage

With a lack of nitrogen, the heads of white cabbage do not gain the required mass, the leaves of young plants are pale green or yellow-green, and in adult plants, old leaves lose their green color, become brown, and dry out prematurely.

To compensate for nitrogen deficiency in cabbage, an aqueous solution of one of the fertilizers is traditionally used:

• urea (nitrogen 46%);
• ammonium nitrate (nitrogen 35%);
• ammonium sulfate (nitrogen 21%).

Inquisitive gardeners have adapted a medicine to eliminate nitrogen deficiency. For comparison, ammonia contains 82% nitrogen.

Ammonia instead of fertilizers

Stunted growth and pale color of cabbage leaves are alarming signals indicating a lack of nitrogen. When preparing a solution, you need to know how to dilute and take into account the high concentration of nitrogen. An excess of nitrogen is no less harmful than a deficiency. And the summer resident does not need extra nitrates in cabbages.

People have a proven recipe for cabbage, which includes 10% ammonia. For 5 liters of water you will need 50 ml of product. You need to pour an ammonia aqueous solution under the root of the cabbage. A single feeding will not give results. To achieve results, ammonia therapy is carried out several times at weekly intervals.

Feeding can be stopped after the symptoms of nitrogen deficiency disappear.

Ammonia against cabbage pests

Cabbage leaves, when grown from seedlings to a tight head of cabbage, are subject to invasion by pests. The sad picture of leaves eaten away by caterpillars is familiar to every gardener. Not only caterpillars eat cabbage; mole crickets, slugs, aphids, white butterflies, small cruciferous flea beetles, cutworms, and cabbage moth larvae love it. After a single treatment of cabbage against pests with ammonia, the insects will not disappear; you will have to treat them several times, the number of treatments depends on the type of pest.

How to get rid of slugs and snails

Voracious slugs and snails, crawling out at night, cause significant damage to cabbage. If you let the problem take its course and do not actively fight slugs, they will destroy the entire crop. It is difficult to fight nocturnal gluttons; they eat leaves at night and crawl into earthen burrows during the day.

An aqueous solution of ammonia helps against slugs on cabbage. Mix a total of 40 ml of ammonia in 6 liters of water. First thoroughly spray the lower surface of the outer leaves with ammonia water, and pour the remaining solution over the root zone. Maintain a 30-minute pause and repeat the procedure in the same sequence.

Insects under the influence of ammonia will crawl out of their hiding places. Then everything depends on the dexterity of the gardener; the faster he removes them, the greater the benefit from this processing. This method is not instantaneous, but it is absolutely safe for human health. Watering cabbage from slugs, it is fed at the same time; other fertilizers containing nitrogen are not needed at this time.

Destruction of cabbage aphids

Young cabbage plants suffer from cabbage aphids.It is difficult to notice a small pest in time; the light green color of the aphid makes it invisible. They learn about the problem after the appearance of many eaten holes on the leaf surface. Leaves eaten by aphids curl. Young cabbage may die.

There are many recipes on how to get rid of aphids without chemicals. Use laundry soap and ammonia against aphids. Cooking will not take much time. Grate the soap or cut it with a knife, dilute it in warm water, pour it into a bucket (10 l) of water. Before processing, add 3 tbsp. l. ammonia.

Soap is an essential component of the folk remedy; it creates a film on the surface of the leaves after spraying, prolonging the duration of the folk remedy. The treatment will have to be repeated after 2 weeks. By this time, new adult aphids may emerge from the larvae laid by the females.

How to protect cabbage leaves from cabbage whites

A familiar picture - on a sunny summer day, white butterflies flutter in the garden, which is not an idyll. But if there are at least a few heads of cabbage in the garden, the mood spoils. After the massive summer of white butterflies, we must wait for caterpillars. The caterpillar lives for a little less than a month, pupates and turns back into butterflies. In a temperate climate, in the absence of struggle, one can expect up to 3 generations of voracious caterpillars.

You can get rid of caterpillars on cabbage in different ways:

• stretch the transparent mesh;
• plant marigolds;
• use insecticides;
• use safe folk remedies.

Folk remedies are safe for humans. Most often they prefer to use fragrant, repellent infusions made from herbs. You can get rid of caterpillars much faster using ammonia and vinegar.

For a bucket of water you will need 50 ml of ammonia and 1 tbsp. l. vinegar essence 70%. You cannot water the cabbage with the resulting solution; you can thoroughly spray the cabbage against pests in the evening. Keeping in mind the breeding cycles of the white butterfly, treat the cabbage several times over the summer. The use of such a solution helps to get rid of not only the caterpillars of the white butterfly, it is effective against the caterpillars of night butterflies: cabbage cutworm, cabbage moth.

Ammonia from mole cricket

Mole cricket prefers plants from the cruciferous family. Her favorite food is cabbage. Dealing with a mole cricket is difficult. The insect quickly moves through the air, settles in the ground, digging holes there, and reproduces. To eliminate the use of toxic drugs, experienced gardeners carry out a number of preventive measures:

• in the fall they carry out deep digging of the ridge (25-30 cm);

• in the spring, before sowing cabbage, marigolds are planted along the perimeter of the ridge;
• In the fall, manure traps are prepared in the ground.

All these measures will not give 100% results if in the spring, after planting cabbage seedlings, the ground is not treated with a solution prepared from water and ammonia. You only need 10 ml of ammonia, dilute it in a bucket of water and water each plant. One-time watering in the spring is sufficient. The mole cricket will not encroach on this ridge all summer.

Treatment of Chinese cabbage with ammonia

Chinese cabbage many summer residents plant: quickly, tasty, healthy. But often, tender leaves become a haven for insect pests. Holes on the outer leaves impair the presentation of the heads of cabbage and reduce the useful yield.

Most often, the leaves are attacked by the cruciferous flea beetle; it is especially dangerous in the initial period, when the leaves have not yet curled into a head of cabbage. Gardeners, in the fight against cruciferous flea flea, resort to ammonia.It is not forbidden to eat Chinese cabbage in the near future without fear of consequences.

The preparation process is very simple: take a bucket of water, dissolve a small amount of liquid soap in it and add 2 tbsp. l ammonia. Water not only the leaves, but also the ground with this water. The cruciferous flea beetle can be found not only on the leaves; it moves along the ground by jumping. Such watering will additionally prevent diseases, since with the help of ammonia it will provide the plants with nitrogen in an easily digestible form.

Each vegetable grower decides for himself which means of control to choose. The main criterion is minimal harm to health.